


The Man Who Didn't Know His Own Strength

by cyrusbarrone



Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Bucky is a fucking idiot in this btw, Carnival - AU, Clint is just Clint, M/M, Steve is too nice
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-31
Updated: 2014-08-31
Packaged: 2018-02-15 13:55:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,555
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2231571
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cyrusbarrone/pseuds/cyrusbarrone
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He swung his arms back, and then forwards, bringing the mallet down and hearing a thud louder than the rubber shot. He spun around and his eyes widened.</p><p>The hulk of a man was on the floor, blood spotting on his forehead and mouth hanging open. Bucky could see that he was totally dead.</p><p>or 'the one where Bucky is an idiot and tries to bury Steve Rogers'</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Man Who Didn't Know His Own Strength

Ever since he was a kid he knew that he would end up in this business, he'd been raised in it, traveling around in metal boxes, carting around things with lights and bells on. He'd accepted it when he was a teenager and his father had first let him stand and run the family stall. It was that one with the oversized hammer and the shining red bell at the top. He had stood there, sweating under the midday sun in the itching outfit that employees were to wear, and he'd called out in his loudest voice to 'step right up!' because that's what his dad told him to do.

It was his stall now, and it hadn't really changed much, couldn't really. The principal was the same, but the encouragements painted finely onto the sides in white and gold had been updated as time went on, as it was left to him as his own. He took care of it, pride in what he had and what he did.

He wasn't a teenager anymore, he was twenty three and he'd made a name for himself amongst the team. Bucky was handy, he could leave his stall with a kid and do repairs on the rides, paint the backdrops for the horror house that got less scary and he grew older. He was a man of all trades, even after his arm was gone. It had been a horrific accident- his father would tell him, Bucky didn't remember much about it, seven year old him evacuating the thought with happier things - where his arm had gotten trapped when they'd set up the ancient ferris wheel. It had been too mangled to save.

But still, he would stand by his shall and he's shout out the words and he'd give a wave of his glinting metal arm towards the game and he'd get some stragglers. He'd rile them up, boast about he got it to hit every time, and they'd pay until they got it as good as he could, that's just how it was.

"This is how you do it, Ma'am," he said to a lady with soft blonde curls and red painted lips. He had the mallet between flesh and metal fingers, her a safe distance away as he threw the mallet back, using his body weight to bring it forwards in a curve before the little rubber shot flew up its path and hit into the bell. 

She looked between him and the mallet, pursed her lips. "I don't think it's fair, doll," she said, taking the bright red mallet from Bucky and licking at her waxy lips. "You've got that robo arm."

Bucky slipped into an easy grin, helping her position herself to actually hit the shot. "D'you want me to do it with one arm?" he questioned, letting go of her wrist and tucking his hands into his jackets pockets.

He watched with a slight smile as she threw the mallet back and then swung it all the way back to hit the base of the stand. The rubber shot managed about half way up before it rocketed down again with a thud. Bucky smiled at her as she huffed and leant up against the mallet. 

"I'll give you another go for half the price," Bucky says, grinning at her because he knows she can't say no to that. She passes over the coins from a little orange purse and then readies herself again, getting in the stance, legs wide and eyes concentrated on the target. She swings and the rubber shot goes higher, neared the bell before it plummets and she glares angrily at it, pursing her red lips together. 

Bucky wandered around and chucked his arm over her shoulder giving it a slight squeeze. "Better luck next time, doll," he says, giving her a smile as she passed the bright coloured mallet back. 

She did give him a smile though, and a gentle shove of the arm, like they'd been friends for years and Bucky wasn't only being charming because it got him some coin. "Next time, first try, I'll get it!" she swears, looking determined before she walks away, going to a stall that's run by Clint. He teaches kids how to shoot a bow and arrow, or rather, watches in horror as they miss the target each time. Bucky grins at him and gives him a slight nod. 

He crouches down to put her change in the metal box they all have, he stretches his knees wide and the back of his jeans pull down around the top of his boxers. "Who the hell paid with a fifty dollar note?" he mutters to himself as he puts the coins into the correct and ordered place of the little metal tin. 

The rest of the day goes easily; he charms people into playing the game and pushes them into giving him more money for more shots. It's a good day, really, and at the end of it all he goes and finds Clint and they drink in his caravan while Clint complains about kids and Bucky's hair. 

-

The lights of the Ferris wheel glinted and the songs from the stalls next to him kept his mind occupied as he polished off the shining metal at the top of his stand. He liked it to look somewhat presentable, he found it brought over more customers if there was a shinier target for them to hit. 

He got a couple of groups first, teenagers trying to impress girls with bubblegum lips and unimpressed eyes. Then there were the couples who cheered each other into hitting the target and getting some sort of prize, something cute to remember when they had four kids together and hated each other. 

He had Clint standing with him, because archery wasn't exactly a safe hobby when it was dark and when there were children involved, so Clint often stood with him and goaded and drank a lot of his beer. Because, he'd tell Bucky, if he didn't, who else would? And bullshit about it being what friends were for. Bucky had a tally going of the alcohol Clint stole, he was on about twenty, and twenty he planned on taking back. 

"When are you going to let me cut your hair?" whined Clint, and he was whining, had been for months about the hair that curled loosely around his jaw and sat a little above his shoulders. Bucky shot him a look and an eyeroll. "Ugh, don't give me that look, it's so emo scowl."

Bucky didn't know what that meant, but, "even so, you're not cutting my hair, buddy. Nat might let you but that's because your spells got to her," he said, not unsuspicously. 

"What?" he asked, defensively, taking another pull of beer. "I have a thing for taking beautiful Russian badasses and bringing them to their full potential!" he pulled at Bucky's hair, looking exasperated. "You could be an eleven and you're like a seven!" he sounded distressed.

Bucky shoved him off his stall. "And you're an asshole! Go bug Nat or something!" he says, wandering back to start calling for passers-by, bitter beer stuck on his tongue as he starts shouting for people to 'step right up!'.

The night goes slowly, as they often do, too many people are too drunk to be allowed near a mallet and the ones that believe they can are annoying and arrogant and stink of potential vomit. Bucky is not one for standing around some heaving fat guy who’s going to throw up two ounces of beer and French fries. It wasn't his style.

In fact, the night drags on, and he doesn't even try with getting customers to come over and instead just swings the mallet himself just to hear the little ding of the bell. He wastes time until carnival goers start to sober up, or start to leave, because his stall wasn't as exciting as the circus act or the girls who threw knives at one another.

He swings the mallet with one arm, his bionic one, and the rubber rockets up and up. Ding. 

"Impressive," someone says, letting out a low whistle. Bucky turns around quickly. There's a man there, thick muscular shoulders and arms with the blonde hair and kind looking face of someone so stereotypical of the perfect American. "Again?"

Bucky felt like some sort of mallet prostitute as he did what the man said, he threw his arms back with the mallet and heard a slight thudding sound in its wake. He spun quickly on his heels and his eyes grew bigger, and he woke up a hell of a lot faster than he ever had before.

The hulk of a man was on the floor, blood spotting on his forehead and mouth hanging open. Bucky could see that he was totally dead. And when he put his metal hand down on his wrist there was no pulse! There was no other explanation, there was blood on his mouth and Bucky had seen crime shows before he knew that didn't mean anything good. Oh, god he'd killed someone trying to be impressive, how awful. He was going to go to prison! Guys like him couldn't survive in prison, and he was hyperventilating. 

"Oh fuck!" he says miserably, looking around quickly before grabbing at the guys backpack strap with his bionic arm and dragging him behind the stand of his stall. He had to bury the body. But was that the best way to do it nowadays? He'd be discovered; they had sniffer dogs now for Christ’s sake! 

"Stay here," he says pointedly to the body of the attractive man, pointing his finger.

He needed to find Clint, because Clint was the only person he knew who would know how to dispose of a body in a way that would keep them out of the range of the police. Bucky's palm was sweating and he felt hot around the face, aware of every single person and feeling every single pair of eyes on him as he shoved into Clint’s trailer. 

Clint, luckily, is alone. He's watching some old film on the tv while painting his nails a colour Bucky couldn't appreciate when all he could think about was muscles' dead body. Clint looked up at him expectantly. 

"I need help burying a body," spewed out Bucky, never one for subtlety or slowly breaking the news. But now probably was in need of that because who knows who could be snooping around his stall while he was away? God knows that Tony was one nosy bastard and never kept to his own stall. 

Clint's expression faltered. "You're not serious." 

"Do I look like I'm fucking joking?" Bucky all but spat out, but only because he was panicking, probably more than he ever had. He paced around the little area free in the trailer and clenched and unclenched his fists, listening to the little clicks his bionic arm made to calm him down. "I hit him with my mallet." 

"Well," Clint says. "I'll grab my shovel!" 

Bucky tugged his hood up over his head, for two reasons, it was fucking cold and the second was he'd heard somewhere that it was harder to identify someone when they had a hood up. He figured that's why elder people were often resentful towards kids with their hoods up.

He stuffed his hands in his pockets and ran-walked with Clint to his stall and did a fancy hop ontothe table. He was still there and he was still dead as anything, and Bucky was getting tha sense of dread back. He was seriously thinking about turning himself in, it would keep Clint out of trouble and maybe he'd only get a few years because it was accidental with no malicious intent.

"He's huge," Clint deadpans. "How did you manage to kill the freaking hulk?" he hisses out, almost a stage whisper and Bucky snaps his head to glare and him and stuff his hand over his mouth. 

"Shut up!" he hissed, and hopped over the table to assess how he was going to get the body to the forest a couplet hundred meters away. It wasn't like he couldn't drag it, but there were people around and Bucky was never one for discretion or secrets. He hefted his arms around the dead weight of the man, stumbling a little bit at the weight, and tucked his arms under the mans armpits.

"What if someone sees you dragging a body into the woods?" Clint asks, not seeming that bothered. "Stark's stand is right by there you know."

And Bucky knew that. He knew the place of every stall and he knew exactly how many people at any given time were going to be at the stalls. Natasha's stall was favored by teenage girls who were often home by ten, and then Banner's workshop of wonderful home science was surrounded by easily impressed stoners and drunks as he blew shit up. Stark's stall may not have been terribly popular for the late at night goers, but he always managed to have a healthy circle of people around him, Bucky didn't know how. 

"I can totally distract Natasha," says Clint seriously, eyeing Bucky as he pulls the body out from behind his stall. Bucky's pulling at it like the corpse weighs very little and Clint swears, for one of the many times, that he'd totally date Bucky if not for his strength alone. 

Bucky gave him a look. An all glowering one only pronounced more by that awful dark eyeshadow that he insisted on wearing. Bucky said it was showmanship, added mystery, Clint just said it was awful. Didn't frame his face at all, and he had a lovely face to frame. "I know you can distract Natasha," he says, pulling the body behind the smoky tent of the fortune teller. "Distract Stark!" 

Bucky didn't see Clint leave, but he heard the mock 'yes sir' and could picture the half assed salute.

He waits in his little hiding spot between the smoky tent of the fortune reader and the ride that was too bright and loud for anyone to notice him and the deadweight (literal deadweight) that he was holding up under the armpits. He's watching Stark's stand, where Clint's talking to him about something and making wide hand gestures, and Bucky's getting anxious about what's taking so long and why Stark's still where he was a few minutes ago. Clint gives him a nod seconds later, and Bucky hitches the man up and goes on with dragging him through to the woods. His head whipped from left to right, looking out for people seeing him, and noticing none bar the ones with glassy eyes and spit covered mouths. His hair falls over his face as he pulls the man back a few feet. 

He finds himself staring at the man, with big eyes and twitching, nervous hands. "I know this isn't honorable," he says quietly, letting out a slight nervous laugh and glance up to a sky towards a god he'd never believed in. "An' you probably wanted a proper funeral, but I can't be dragged into a case like this..." 

"You look insane," Clint breaks his rambling, rocking a hand to his shoulder. "You're talking to a body. And the fact you're holding a body is pretty insane but let's over look that shit and get it buried." 

Bucky never thought he'd hear those words, and he never thought he would have those types of friends either. 

"Diggings hard work," continues Clint, walking ahead with a shovel looped over his shoulder, Bucky following behind, dragging the body of the blonde in the dirt. "Like, sweat inducing work. You owe me one." 

And Bucky did. He knew that, because he had potentially pulled his best friend into a crime that he was no part of, and Bucky felt even worse, adding to the nausea that was already aching at the pit of his stomach in the most awful way. His face was hot, sweat gathering at his forehead and his eyes raced. He felt like he'd taken one of Banner's experimental drugs because every step he took made his stomach swoop alarmingly and at the same time he wanted to leap and move quickly. He felt jittery as he went to lend Clint a hand with the digging. 

The grounds barely dented after a half an hour or so, there's a minimal pile of dusty dirt and Bucky's got it caked on his face in a way that can't be pretty. His arm is cramping and his biomechanical one has to keep recalibrating, getting tired too. 

"I salute to gravediggers," huffs Bucky, swiping his forehead to collect the sweat up. He yanked his hair back into an ungraceful ponytail and shoved the spade back into the ground. "Must be built like body builders." 

"I dated a body builder once," Clint pipes up. "He was freaking cree--" 

"Uuugh?" spoke the corpse-zombie thing. It sat up, head tilted and blood smeared with dirt on his forehead, mouth ungracefully open and with leaves hanging from his hair. "What--" 

Bucky goes to whack him with a shovel. He'd seen the damn movies, knew that to end a zombie you crush their skulls and you don't stop. He figured it was the same in real life. 

The zombie scuttled back, eyes wide and hands flying out in a very-human gesture to show that they weren't going to bring any harm. Which Bucky thought was odd considering he was the one ready to kill with a spade. "Hey!" says the zombie, and Bucky's hands twitch because it's very un-zombielike to speak, so he drops the spade with a clatter. 

"You were dead," he states, eyes wide and horrified. "You had no pulse, I felt for it!" he lifts up his left arm. 

Clint's watching in shock. "You're a fucking idiot, Barnes," he states from where he’s leaning on his spade, amused smirk on his face. "You can't feel shit through those fingers." 

Bucky twitched his fingers, looking at the metal pads and blinking a little in surprise. Oh. In the midst of hyperventilating and having a bit of a mild break down, he'd forgotten the fact that he couldn't feel from shoulder down. He felt like an idiot, really, because who did that? He'd nearly buried a man alive for god’s sake! 

He lets out a slight embarrassed laugh, ducking his head and crunching his fists. "Ha," he says, a little desperately and hysterically. "Oh, god. I nearly buried a man alive! I nearly actually killed someone!" he started to walk in tight little circles and fist his hands under his damp eyes. 

"We nearly buried someone alive," Clint corrected. He looked over to said man, who was looking uncomfortable but also way to calm for a man who would've been in the ground in a few (okay, maybe a lot more than a few) hours. 

The man lifts his hands again. "I'm fine," he says, pushing up to stand and trying not to grimace at the scraping down his back. "Maybe your swing was just a little too impressive," he consoles, laughing slightly and pressing a hand down onto Bucky's shoulder. 

Bucky stops pacing. He looks a bit of a wreck. His ponytail is half fallen out, sweaty strands hang over his smeared eyeliner eyes, and dirt is rubbed under his nose from a scratch. His eyebrows twitch and he chews at his wide bottom lip. "Maybe?" he asks, and it sounds shy. 

"Maybe," repeats the not-dead-man, letting go of Bucky's shoulder. 

Clint speaks up. "I mean, it's sweet an all, but can we please go back to the carnival so I feel a little less like I was going to bury a body?" 

Bucky nods fervently, taking one of the spades Clint brought and tucking it over his shoulder, other hand in the pouch of his pocket. "Yeah, we should probably go back."

He figured that it should probably be weird that he was walking back to the carnival with the man he had basically tried to bury, but it wasn't because Clint is a talker. He speaks and speaks, asking the man what his name is- Steve- and just about stuff that Bucky would care more about if he didn't have this weird embarrassed guilt settling down in his stomach. He felt stupid for rushing to conclusions, and he felt stupid just in general and the happy go lucky conversation Clint and Steve were having made him feel a little awkward.

Once they got back to the light and loud of the carnival, Bucky wanted to go and hide in his van, burrow himself in his blankets and probably never talk about this evening again. But Clint grabbed his arm before he could disappear. 

"Where are you going?" he asked, like he didn't know, and Bucky glowers at him under his hair, annoyed and wanting to leave. Clint took his spade. "Pretty rude to just leave the guy you just tried to bury."

Bucky felt frustrated because this was all a bit of a misunderstanding, because he hadn't actually tried to bury him. He might have done if he hadn't woken up in time, but he had, and Bucky hadn't thought about putting him in a grave after that. Okay, he might've tried to hit him with the spade when he woke but that was survival instinct that most idiots in zombie flicks lacked. 

"I doubt he would want to hang out with the bloke who tried to whack his head in," Bucky says, dramatically. 

"You should buy him some cotton candy," continued Clint nonchalantly. "Wouldn't you like that, Steve?" 

Bucky stared at Steve and hoped stubbornly that he would say no. The more he looked at him the more embarrassed he felt about what had happened, and he couldn't bear to think about spending more time with this stupidly attractive and stupidly forgiving man. 

"Um, sure?" asks Steve, and his face has gone red and Bucky sighs because he was always a sucker for a blusher.

So they start to walk towards Sharon's cotton candy stall, Clint going back to his camper to put away the spades. The cotton candy stall is painted in pastel pinks with wide stripes stretching at top to bottom, and some soft music playing from crackly little speakers at the corners. Sharon is sitting on the edge of the stall, wiping up the spilt syrups and sugar into a bin. When Bucky gets there she smiles brightly at him, and even brighter at Steve behind him. 

"Haven't seen you down here before, Bucky," she comments as she starts swirling the pink sugar onto the card cones. "Nat said you hated cotton candy." 

Bucky shrugged, she was right, he hated the stuff. It stuck under his teeth and always tasted of artificial strawberry. 

Sharon gave him a grin. "Is it cos of your date?" she queries, giving a stupid eyebrow wiggle as she handed the candy over. "Y'know, boss won't be best pleased that you're dating on the job." 

Bucky took the candy and passed one to Steve who was a constant shade of red around his face. Bucky gave her his best glare. "This isn't a date, doll." 

"Really?" she piped up, taking Bucky's money. A smile pulled her lips and she did a stage whisper. "Could you get me his number then?"

Bucky rolled his eyes, and told her a flat 'no'. He was usually better at dealing with her banter, but he had had a long day and he frankly wanted to get back to his stand and pack up for the night. They were leaving tomorrow morning, early, and he wanted to be ready. 

"Spoil sport!" she shouts after him when he has left with Steve. 

"Y'know this isn't the worst thing to happen to me," Steve assures Bucky. He has sugar sticking around his mouth and he looks a little bit more than ridiculous. Bucky's fingers twitch around the cone of his neglected cotton candy, wanting to wipe it off.

He gives a laugh, forced from the sated embarrassment and guilt. "That is a scary sentence, considering, pal." 

Steve's face goes red again, and Bucky looks away. He looks at where the grass is turning muddy and making the ends of his boots brown and grassy, he looks at the litter people drop on the ground instead of the bins. He does not look at Steve and his blushing face.

"I guess," admits Steve. "I got trapped in a freezer once, though, when I was a lot skinnier. They had to thaw me out, and inject me with stuff to make sure my blood didn't freeze." 

Bucky felt like he knew Steve's life story, and felt his ears burn a little. He passed him his own cotton candy, and tried to give some information about himself, so they were even. "The ferris wheel fell on my arm and crushed it," he shares. "I had to get it amputated." He felt as though he might have said too much.

Steve rubs at the back of his neck, the typical sign of not knowing what to say and Bucky's face goes a slight red and he ducks behind his hair and wants to hide even more than normal. When he gets to his stall it's a welcome sight, and he pushes himself onto the stand and slips onto the other side. 

"Did you need any help with that?" asks Steve, after finishing his second cotton candy and putting the sticky cones into the bin. 

Bucky glanced up at the muscles the guy had and shook his head, feeling a little inadequate in comparison. "I'm good," he replies. He pulls a pin from the bottom of the stand and lowers the wooden backing down and away from the base, separating them and getting them ready to go in the back of his truck. 

"it's been quite a night," Steve tries at conversation, and Bucky looks up at him, eyes wide and mind in a repeating mantra of 'no, stop mentioning it, please'. "And I'd like to know if you'd want to go to coffee with me sometime?" 

Bucky hadn't heard him correctly. Who would want that with the guy who nearly buried him, and the one who made that awful purple bruise on his forehead? Bucky gaped a little more, and scrunched his metal fingers into a fist, into his pocket. 

"You sure about that, pal?" he asks, standing a little straighter and a little more in front of Steve, who looks stupidly attractive in the red and black of the lights opposite. Bucky doubts he would look that good after being dragged through a forest. 

Steve lets out a laugh. "I'm sure," he promises. 

Bucky steps a little closer to give him his number, they wouldn't be in town for weeks, they moved and they didn't stay in one place for long enough. The coffee probably wouldn't happen, and that was just something he had come to accept when people asked. The toes of his boots touched the toes of Steve's converse, and Bucky looked up, nervous laughter spilling from his mouth, like an idiot. 

"I can feel your heartbeat now."

**Author's Note:**

> I've been writing this for a couple of weeks, after thinking it would be a pretty hilarious idea, and I needed to finish it so here it is!


End file.
